Black light Dragon

[Ken Childs]

When I got my first DSLR, I knew nothing about working with raw files so I opened up a shot of a Blue Dasher Dragonfly in ACR and did what many of us probably did. I started dragging the sliders to see what would happen. I ended up with an image that looked like it might have been taken under a black light. It just so happened that the colors of this particular species end up looking this way so it's not really a technique that can be widely used. Yesterday I was looking at some recent images of Blue Dashers and I wondered if I could replicate the effect.

[Mark Fuge]

Neat image and application, Ken.

I think you got it! :cool:

[Nicki Gwynn Jones]

Ken, I love those colours - looks almost fluorescent - very nicely done :)

[denise ippolito]

Ken, This does look like a blacklight effect. It might look good with the wings slightly illuminated or some rim lighting to them. Very cool.:)

[Patti Edens]

Ken, Great colors and idea. Thanks for telling us how you did it. I have to give it a try.

Patti

[Kerry Perkins]

Like this a lot Ken! The black-light effect really works. I agree about the wings (as well as the legs and end of tail). Just a touch of highlights on them would make it pop even more. Well done!

[Arthur Morris]

Love the colors on the face/eyes, the thorax, and the abdomen. The mushy feet are quite distracting; not sure why that happened....

[Cheryl Slechta]

Ken, it does have a fluorescent look. Great colors. I'd like to see some rim lighting on the wings and legs also.
P.S. - your website looks like a really wonderful place:)

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Great colours and framing. Did you do some cloning around the legs? Artie has piqued my curiousity:) about the legs.

[Indranil Sircar]

Beautiful composition. Love the color with the dark bg and works well here.

[Ken Childs]

P.S. - your website looks like a really wonderful place:)

Thanks! I like it here. :)

[Ken Childs]

Did you do some cloning around the legs? Artie has piqued my curiousity:) about the legs.

There was a perch that looked ugly so I cloned it away and I guess I got carried away and took the feet with it. I didn't think it was noticeable but now that I'm on my wife's overly bright laptop, it really shows. :o

[Arthur Morris]

There was a perch that looked ugly so I cloned it away and I guess I got carried away and took the feet with it. I didn't think it was noticeable but now that I'm on my wife's overly bright laptop, it really shows. :o

There a lot to be said for setting up perfect perches for dragonflies...

[Ken Childs]

There a lot to be said for setting up perfect perches for dragonflies...

I really should have been more clear in what I said. There's nothing wrong with the perch but after the weird color conversion, the perch looked bad.

Actually my perches look pretty good now. I couldn't find natural ones that I liked so I stained the ones I was using. :)